Word: tristan
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Wagner: Overture to Die Meistersinger, Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde, Prelude to Parsifal, Preludes to Act I and Act III of Lohengrin (Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra, Bernard Haitink, conductor; Philips; $7.98). If records like this did not come along occasionally, one would tend to take these familiar excerpts for granted-as Herbert von Karajan obviously does in a bleary competing version on Angel. The freshness and vigor of Haitink's interpretations stem, surprisingly enough, from his scrupulously orthodox approach. He is less interested in conveying his own message than in getting his men-all of whom seem...
...playwright's fancy was taken by the fact that three revolutionaries of vastly differing temperaments and persuasions lived contiguously in Zurich during World War I. They were Tristan Tzara, Rumanian poet and founder of Dadaism, James Joyce and Lenin. There is no evidence that they ever met each other, but in Travesties, they do. Stoppard was further intrigued by a suit filed against Joyce by one Henry Carr for the price of a pair of trousers. A minor British consular official, Carr had purchased the trousers to play Algernon Moncrieff in The Importance of Being Earnest for a Joyce...
Married. Jess Thomas, 46, Wagnerian heldentenor of the Metropolitan Opera, and Argentine Publishing Heiress Violeta Rios, 29, who fell in love with Thomas' Tristan three years ago and pursued him for months, tossing roses onto the stage after his performances, until a mutual acquaintance introduced them; both for the second time; in Tiburon, Calif...
...sophisticated stage direction of Germany's August Everding, 46, shows traces of the admirable Tristan und Isolde he conceived for the Met in 1971. Everding has an almost TV-like fondness for "closeups," achieved through the use of solo spotlights. At key moments, Everding darkens the stage and picks out a character with a single spot. Isolating Boris at the end of the coronation scene is brilliant stagecraft. But giving the Simpleton a solo spot in the forest clearing, at the opera's end, is mere staginess...
...premise Stoppard devised for Travesties is perhaps the most surefire of all his plays. Zurich in 1916 was the wartime refuge of such interesting people as James Joyce, Lenin, Krupskaya (Lenin's wife), and the Rumanian dadaist Tristan Tzara, all of whom Stoppard brings together onstage (they never met in real life). All the ingredients of a fine intellectual comedy are there, but Stoppard fails to make them gel. The problem is the character he chooses to be his catalyst: Henry Carr. In real life, Carr, a British consul in Zurich, once sued Joyce to recover some money...